Customer Reviews

Panasonic DVD-S54K 1080p Upconverting DVD Player

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

There are DVD players out there in the same price range that offer a better picture. But what the Panasonic has going for it is rugged construction, a good remote, quick loading, easy set up and it plays everything (not multi-region though). I bought the S54 to replace my S47 which has given me six years of good service and is still running (the motor is getting tired though). I have tried other brands, including a Philips, which gave me just six months of service. So six years of intense use for this price is excellent (My friend's S47 is still going strong after six years). I watch my quality DVDs on a Denon or Marantz, but like all good DVD players, they can't handle shoddy media. They stick, skip or refuse to load. Which is why I always have a cheap DVD player on hand for less than perfect media. The S54 does that job in style, none of that dreaded 'disc error'. Simply put, this Panasonic range is the AK47 of DVD players. If it had better picture quality it would rate five stars.

I just bought one to replace an older, but much better, Panasonic DVD-S97. This S54 player requires a lot of settings to up-convert to a new LCD 1080p TV using HDMI cable.

Unfortunately, with all the correct settings, it will not up-convert -- the picture looks like 480p, not 1080p. Using the same TV, cable, DVD disc, my old Panasonic S97 player displays a gorgeous up-converted picture, compared to the S54.

Panasonic doesn't seem to care either. Their profits will come from selling Blu-Ray, guess they don't much care about the quality of this 'transitional' DVD player.

Don't buy the S54 if you expect up-conversion to a 1080p LCD TV. I also have an older Toshiba DVD recorder/player connected to the same TV, it up-converts perfectly.

This DVD player is worth more than its cost. The price is great for a full featured, multiple format player. For those of us waiting for Blueray players to become reasonably priced, this product fits the bill.

great picture quality, so far watched 2 movies and they looked incredible. much clearer then a reg DVD player@ 480i. the only fault that I see is the tray is a little flimsy. I would recommend this DVD player.

I own a DMR-ES25 Panasonic recorder and wanted a player with DVD-RAM capabilities. However when I hooked this up to my 1080p LCD TV through HDMI, I noticed that the resulting picture was noisy and much worse than the 1080i upconversion coming from my old Panasonic's HDMI output. There was practically no noticeable difference between the 480p and 1080p outputs when watching DVDs. It was as if there was no upconversion. I even experienced occasional video and audio loss. BTW I was using the same HDMI cable to compare my DVD recorder and this unit, so I don't think that was the issue here. The menu screen had superfluous white dots in random places.

Also the tray is flimsy and it's hard to get DVDs out. I ended up returning it. I either got a bad unit or the quality of the upconversion circuitry is just not up to par compared to older generation Panasonics.

I own a Panasonic DMR-EZ485VK DVD recorder for recording about 5-8 shows per week off TV and then "power watching" them on weekends. I've learned that recording on DVD-RAM is MUCH nicer than other DVD formats due to easy editing (see my review under the recorder). The only CON is that they cannot be played on most (all?) other brands of DVD players. Hence, you need to buy Panasonic DVD players to watch your recorded DVDs at other locations.
If you ever think you will make your own DVD-RAM DVDs, buy this (or similar?) unit in anticipation.

I trusted a new model from Panasonic. Big mistake! Constantly locks up, must be powered down to reset, and can't play most video formats that my Philips can. Philips has no frame advance or I would not need another DVD player. I hardly ever return anything, but this thing is worthless. Maybe they'll create new firmware for it later.

I guess there may be better machines available, but for the price this does everything it's suppose to do and does it very well. I would recommend this player to my friends.

It seems I have been on the "bleeding edge" of consumer electronics for my whole life, which is my cross to bear as an early adopter of technology. I once paid $1000 for a VCR when they first came out in 1980. So anyway, I bought a wonderful Panasonic 50" plasma 1080p HDTV last fall. Blue-Rays were selling for $400 at the time, but I decided I'd wait until Panasonic Blue-Ray prices fell to under $150 (you know this will happen). I bought this very nice Panasonic S54K DVD player to hold me over until then. I was pleasantly surprised that the image quality is excellent on my HDTV ('though not HD). The "up-convert to 1080p" feature is certainly adequate until the time is right for a new Blue-Ray player. Newer Panasonic Viera TVs recognize other Panasonic Viera components like this DVD, so integration is semi-automatic. One minor complaint is the disk drawer seems a little cheap, but hey, this is a inexpensive machine with nice features. If you have a standard definition TV, this unit is perfectly fine.

I've tried several upscaling DVD players and this is the best picture I've seen so far. The player itself is very reliable and I've had no problems after several months of use. Panasonic is one of my favorite products and I find them to be very dependable.